


Running Into Brick Walls is Fun

by AFlameThatFlickersOutTooSoon



Series: Heed Not the Wizards Who Scream Revolution (a Hamilsquad Hogwarts au) [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Gryffindor John Laurens, Henry Laurens' A+ Parenting, I'm Bad At Tagging, Slytherin Alexander Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14621862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFlameThatFlickersOutTooSoon/pseuds/AFlameThatFlickersOutTooSoon
Summary: It was September 1st, roughly 10:45 AM, and Alexander Hamilton was getting desperate. His ticket said to go to platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o’clock. Which didn’t seem to have been built yet. He had been pushing the cart that held his trunk back and forth between platforms nine and ten for around fifteen minutes, and still hadn’t found the platform.





	Running Into Brick Walls is Fun

**Author's Note:**

> Well. I’ve finished it. Finally.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Hamilton or Harry Potter.
> 
> EDIT: I fixed the formatting. It was hell and it took way too long but I did it.

Eliza was a lot more nervous than she’d like to admit. She’d been excited for the whole summer; caught in fantasies of magic and whimsy without considering the reality, which was that Eliza had never been away from home before, and had never been to a large school before either. Never been in a large group of people that wasn’t one of her dad’s dinner parties. Eliza was confident in her ability to charm party guests, not so much in her ability to make it though her first year of school. Fortunately she had Angelica, she couldn’t imagine doing this without support. She didn’t understand how muggle borns did it- she was nervous and she’d been raised with magic.

”Come on Eliza, if we don’t hurry all of the compartments will be taken up!” Angelica almost shouted in an attempt to be heard over the chaos of the platform.

”I’m coming, just want to say goodbye again.”

”Liza, you’ve said goodbye five times.”

Eliza ignored her, turning and running back to her mother and Peggy. She enveloped both of them in a hug. “I’ll miss you.” 

“We’ll miss you to, Liza.” Peggy said. 

Eliza walked back to Angelica. 

“Okay. Let’s go.”

They found an empty compartment with ease. By the time they’d gotten settled, Eliza’s stomach was full of butterflies. She felt somewhat like she was going to throw up.

”Angie?” Eliza’s voice came out a few pitches higher than normal.

”Yeah?” Angelica looked at her over the book she was reading.

“What happens if I fail?”

”You aren’t going to fail.” Angelica put a bookmark in the book, shut it, and set it down.

”But I have no useful skills.”

”Not true. You’re smart, kind, and you have plenty of useful skills. You’ll do fine.” She moved from her seat to sit next to Eliza, and wrapped her in a hug. That was when Eliza knew that everything would be alright.

~

”Well, Jemmy James. You ready?” Thomas grinned at James as he said it.

”As I’ll ever be.” In truth, James was terrified. But hey, it’s not really a lie... if anything James was becoming less ready as time went on.

”Great! Okay, now to get onto the platform we just have to run at that wall.”

”We have to run at a _brick wall?_ ”

”Yep.”

”And it won’t kill us?”

”Nope. We’ll just go straight through it and onto the platform.”

James sighed, ”I’ll never get used to magic.”

”That’s not true. You’ll adjust soon enough. Now follow me!” Thomas yelled over his shoulder as he started to run. James shook his head and smiled, before pushing his cart after Thomas.

~

It was September 1st, roughly 10:45 AM, and Alexander Hamilton was getting desperate. His ticket said to go to _platform nine and three-quarters_ at eleven o’clock. Which didn’t seem to have been built yet. He had been pushing the cart that held his trunk back and forth between platforms nine and ten for around fifteen minutes, and still hadn’t found the platform. He hadn’t dared to ask a guard; he knew they wouldn’t know. Alex stood in between the two platforms and just watched the people, trying to find someone who looked like they would know how to get on. That was when he saw him. He had dark skin and a shaved head, but most importantly, he had an owl. Alex decided that he was his best chance. Even if he wasn’t a wizard, and was just a weird guy who liked owls, it wouldn’t do any harm to ask. Alex walked towards him as quickly as possible, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Pardon me, do you know how to get to platform nine and three-quarters?” He turned around, and saw Alex.

”That depends, who’s asking?” He said, monotonously.

”Oh, sure, I’m Alexander Hamilton!”

”Aaron Burr. It’s a pleasure to meet you Alexander.” He said, holding out a hand.

”Nice to meet you too, but I still need to get to the platform.” Alex said, completely ignoring Burr’s attempt at a handshake. Burr looked slightly affronted, but gave the directions.

”You just have to run at that wall over there-“

”You want me to run into a brick wall.” Alex looked at him incredulously.

”Yes. Well, you don’t have to run, but it’s better to-“

_”It’s better to run at the brick wall.”_

”Look, just follow me.”

”Okay...” Alex replied warily. They started walking towards the wall, gathering speed until Alex wasn’t sure if he could stop if he wanted to. _I really hope this isn’t how I die. This would be a pretty pathetic death. “Random eleven-year-old dies because he took the advice of a stranger and ran into a brick wall.”_ Alex fought the instinct to squeeze his eyes shut as they grew closer and closer to the wall. Right when he thought Burr was about to crash into the wall, he vanished. Alex was so surprised he momentarily forgot to run, causing him to trip and stumble forward through the wall. Struggling to not fall, he kept running, and subsequently smashed into someone else’s cart. The other cart got everything knocked off of it and the guy with the cart got knocked backwards. Alex ran into his cart, and both fell over, and got the wind knocked out of him. 

”Oh god, I’m so sorry.“ The other boy stammered, scrambling to his feet. “Oh god are you okay? I’m sorry I shouldn’t have been standing here-“

”No, don’t apologize. It was completely my fault.” Alex gasped out after he’d finally gotten his breath back. The boy was short- though not as short as Alex- with long dark brown curly hair, an abundance of freckles, and green eyes. He held out a hand to help him up and Alex accepted it. “I’m Alexander Hamilton. Most people call me Alex.” He said as he hurriedly pulled his hair back into its ponytail.

”John Laurens.” He looked almost nervous for a second, but quickly relaxed when Alex showed no reaction to the name. “Um, do you want to maybe share a compartment on the train? If you don’t have anyone else. I mean, you don’t have to because we just met and we’ve barely spoken a sentence to each other but I don’t really know anyone.”

”Yeah, that’d be great! Just, give me a second.” Alex scanned the platform as John picked all of his things up to put it back on the cart. He spotted Burr, who was watching with an incredibly amused expression. Alex waved. “Thanks Aaron Burr, sir!” He then turned back to John and they started lugging their trunks to the train. This was harder than it should’ve been. Though, given that they had to fairly large trunks and they were two fairly small boys, they had to be cut a bit of slack. When they finally managed to heave their trunks onto the train, they were faced with the task of finding a compartment. This proved to be harder than Alex had originally assumed it would be but eventually they did find one. They pushed their trunks into the compartment, heaved them onto the luggage rack, and collapsed into their seats. John groaned and fell backwards across his seat. Then he was laughing and they were both laughing and they didn’t stop for quite some time. Two boys, one sitting on the seat in the compartment, the other laying lengthwise across it, laughing their heads off.

~

Of course, as soon as John shook his father off, he had to get run into. John’s dad had been trying to give him yet another lecture on how to act and who he should try to get to know and how he’ll be a disgrace to the Laurens family name if he isn’t placed in Slytherin and about a million other things. This had happened multiple times that day, mostly because John’s mother was sick and staying at home. Not to say that Henry wouldn’t have lectured him, they just wouldn’t have been quite so threatening. Thankfully, John was able to slip away before he was forced to endure another tirade. He knew his father would be angry at him later, but he just couldn’t deal with him at the moment. He nearly sprinted away, hoping Henry would assume he’d managed to get himself lost in the crowd. He had stopped to catch his breath, in front of the entrance like a genius, when two people came through. The first looked a bit older than John, maybe a second year. John jumped when he came through, though they hadn’t collided. The thought that maybe he should move out of the way had barely crossed his mind before the second person barreled through the wall. He seemed to be halfway through face planting, so he jogged a few extra steps to regain his balance. This would’ve been fine if John hadn’t been in front of him. Unfortunately John was in front of him, so they crashed. Everything went flying. One John had regained his senses, he realized that both of them were on the ground, and the other was gasping for breath. John helped him up and tried to apologize but the other shook him off.

”I’m Alexander Hamilton. Most people call me Alex.” He smiled, lighting up his deep brown eyes as he pushed his shoulder-length brown hair back into the ponytail that it’d fallen out of.

”John Laurens.” Right after he said it, John wished he could take it back. _What if he’s heard of my family? What if he hates me now? Oh god that was a mistake._ Thankfully, he didn’t seem to recognize the name. Of course, there would be others at Hogwarts who would recognize his name but he was trying not to think too much about that. He knew his family (at least his dad’s side) wasn’t very well liked in most of the wizarding community, and for good reason. Speaking of his father, his attention might’ve been drawn to the crash, thus making it easier for him to find John. Panicking, John said something about maybe sharing a compartment with Alex, and he agreed, so they set off to find one.

They spent about ten minutes after finding the compartment laughing about literally nothing, but eventually they started just talking. They were both delighted to find that they had similar views on most important subjects. They were also very similar in character. Both were reckless and hotheaded. Maybe not the best traits to draw similarity from, but it was a similarity nonetheless.

At some point, a lady pushing a cart of snacks and candy passed by their compartment and asked if they wanted anything. Alex refused, but John didn’t. He didn’t recognize most of the food, so he just pointed to a few things at random and bought them. He didn’t miss the way Alex’s eyes lingered on the golden coins he pulled from his pocket to pay for it. However, he decided to ignore it, not wanting to talk about his family or how rich they were just yet.

”Do you know what any of this is?” Alex asked.

”No. I’m from South Carolina, I’ve never seen most of these things before.”

”Oh. I’m not from here either. Why are you coming to Hogwarts if you live in America?”

”Both of my parents went to Hogwarts, and my dad’s not particularly fond of Ilvermorny.”

”Ilvermorny?”

”The wizarding school in America.”

”Oh.”

”Why are you coming to Hogwarts?”

”I was already enrolled. I’m not exactly sure how that happened, but I’m pretty sure my dad was a wizard who went to Hogwarts.”

”Cool. So, do you want to try a...” John glanced down at the label of whatever he was holding, “a chocolate frog?”

“Sure.” Alex took the small box, and as soon as he opened it a frog made of chocolate hopped out. Both Alex and John stared at it in silence for a second, before Alex said, “Now that it’s moving around, I’m less excited to eat it.”

”It’s probably just a charm.”

”Why don’t you eat it, then?”

”No thanks.” 

Alex sat for a second, in which he seemed to be pondering something. Then he stood up, climbed onto the seat to reach his trunk, opened it, and pulled a book out. Then, in a swift movement, he brought the book down on top of the frog. He then sat down and started eating the chocolate as if it was a normal everyday occurrence. He glanced at John, who was still staring at him.

”What? You said yourself, it was only a charm. Stop staring at me as if I murdered your dog.”

”I don’t have a dog.”

”Stop staring at me as if I murdered your metaphorical dog.”

John laughed. ”Sure.” 

At one point, a girl with bushy brown hair came into their compartment to ask if they’d seen a toad. When they said they hadn’t, she surveyed them suspiciously for a few seconds as if checking that neither of them were hiding it somewhere in the compartment. Then she left. Thankfully. Though before she left, she told them they should probably change into their school robes. Which they did.

After hours and hours of traveling, the train finally started slowing down. They stumbled out of the train and onto a dark platform.

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years, over here!” John craned his neck to see who was talking. It was a very very tall man, holding a lantern. He leaned down to talk quietly to someone John couldn’t see. “C’mon, follow me- any more firs’ years?” He yelled, “Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!” He turned and started wading through the sea of students. All of the first years followed him, trying to stick as close as possible in order to take advantage of the path he carved through the crowd. They kept walking for quite a while. Down dark, steep, and narrow paths overgrown with plants. Both John and Alex tripped over roots multiple times, usually stumbling into each other but sometimes into other people. When this happened, they both whispered hurried apologies. It was the kind of silence that makes it seem wrong to speak above a whisper.

”Yeh’ll get your firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec, jus’ round this bend here.”

They turned the bend, and John was awestruck. The path had opened onto a giant lake. The water looked almost like ink. And there was a reflection... John slowly raised his head to see a castle. It sat upon a mountain on the other side of the mountain. The sight truly was breathtaking. The darkness made it hard to see the details, but from the silhouette, John could see several towers. Tiny pinpricks of light shone from windows. John almost couldn’t believe he would be going to school here for the next seven years.

“No more’n four to a boat!” The man called, gesturing towards the boats sitting by the shore.

John heard the words but didn’t really comprehend them, busy standing and staring at Hogwarts. Alex had to poke his arm a few times to get him to respond to the words. By that time, almost all of their classmates were already in the boats. John and Alex got into a boat together. There was someone already sitting in it, a girl John didn’t know and also couldn’t really see in the darkness. He could see the lantern reflecting off of her shiny black hair, but that was about it.

”Everyone in? Right then- FORWARD!”

That was when the boats started gliding forward across the lake. They created ripples in the otherwise glasslike surface of the lake. John spent the entire journey staring, transfixed, at the lake. He saw a few fish, and he thought he saw a giant squid, but he wasn’t sure.

They walked up a grassy field to the castle. It seemed even more massive up close. The man raised a fist and knocked on the door, three booming knocks. The door swung open. A very all witch stood in the doorway, casting a long shadow across the grass. There was something stern and foreboding about the way she held herself. 

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall.”

”Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.” The man, Hagrid, turned and walked away into the dark.

Professor McGonagall took the first years into a small room. They squeezed in, slightly cramped but not uncomfortable. She then turned on them and began a lecture about the sorting and the houses. John didn’t really listen; he’d heard it all a million times. Once she’d left, they stood in more silence. At one point a few ghosts floated through the wall, scaring quite a few students. It was really quite amusing. Then Professor McGonagall was back. Professor McGonagall led all of the first years from the small room out into a giant hall. There were candles floating all around the room, and the ceiling seemed to be an opening straight to the sky. Sparkling stars were scattered above them. John could even faintly see the band of stars that made up the Milky Way. John had never really seen it before, light pollution had always gotten in the way. It was breathtaking.

They were led through the room, passing in between two of the four long tables. Eventually they got to what they were walking to. It was a stool, with a old and patched pointed hat placed on top. John had grown up in the wizarding world, so he knew not to judge something’s power by its appearance, but it just looked like a normal hat.

One of the rips in the hat opened like a mouth and it began to sing. Like a normal hat. It sang of its purpose. Then it sang about the four houses. Gryffindor- the brave and chivalrous. Hufflepuff- the loyal and just. Ravenclaw- the smart and wise. And Slytherin- the cunning and ambitious.

Professor McGonagall was holding a scroll in her hands. “When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted.” She flicked the scroll open. “Abbott, Hannah.” 

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Bones, Susan.” 

”HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Boot, Terry.”

”RAVENCLAW!”

John stood in the line, watching kids getting sorted, and steadily growing more nervous.

“Brocklehurst, Mandy.”

”RAVENCLAW!”

“Brown, Lavender.”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

“Bulstrode, Millicent.”

”SLYTHERIN!”

_Professor McGonagall is going to call my name, and everyone will hear my last name and hate me. And I’ll have no friends for the rest of my life. Oh my god it’s getting closer why does my last name start with an L and not a Z?_

“Finch-Fletchley, Justin.”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Finnigan, Seamus.”

”GRYFFINDOR!”

“Granger, Hermione.”

”GRYFFINDOR!”

~

“Hamilton, Alexander.”

When Alex heard his name get called, he took a deep breath and started walking towards the hat. He stab in the stool and the hat got dropped onto his head; falling over his eyes.

“Hmm...”

The voice rang through his mind.

“This is interesting.”

_How is it interesting?_

”You could be in any of the houses, really. Incredibly smart, ambitious, brave, hardworking, perhaps to a fault...”

The hat continued its musings for at least five more minutes, in which Alex could hear all of the other students becoming bored, before finally making a choice. 

“How about... SLYTHERIN!” The last word was shouted out to the entire hall. Everyone burst into applause, probably just glad that it was over. Alex walked towards the Slytherin table, and spotted Aaron Burr. When Burr saw him looking his way, he waved Alex over.

After Alex had sat down at the Slytherin table and the cheering had subsided, the next name Professor McGonagall called out was “Jefferson, Thomas.”

In truth, Alex wasn’t really paying attention. He was focused on John, who was looking more terrified by the second. Alex caught his eye and tried to give him a reassuring smile. John smiled back, though it looked strained. Nevertheless, he took a few breaths and seemed to calm down a bit.

”SLYTHERIN!” 

Alex clapped with the rest of his house.

“Laurens, John.” The hall broke out into whispers as John walked towards the sorting hat. 

“John _Laurens?_ ”

”Laurens as in Henry Laurens?”

Alex leaned towards Burr and muttered, “Who’s Henry Laurens?”

”Henry Laurens is a wizard.”

”Thank you for that piece of information. I never would’ve guessed.”

”Look, I’ll tell you once the feast has started.”

”GRYFFINDOR!” The hat shouted. The blood drained from John’s face and he pulled the hat off and shakily got to his feet. The hall halfheartedly applauded as John made his way to his table.

The sorting was pretty boring after that. Hear the name, wait around, hear the house, politely clap, rinse and repeat. At least until,

”Potter, Harry.”

Even more whispers than when John’s name had been called.

“Potter? The Harry Potter?”

Alex leaned toward Burr, “Who’s Harry Potter?”

”You don’t know who Harry Pot- never mind. He defeated You Know Who.”

”No, I don’t know who.”

”He Who Must Not Be Named. The greatest dark wizard of all time.”

”But he’s just a kid.”

”That’s what makes him so famous. He was a baby when he defeated him, and no one knows how he did it.”

”GRYFFINDOR!”

”Schuyler, Elizabeth.” It was the girl he and John had been on the boat with.

”In a shocking turn of events, Harry Potter is placed in Gryffindor.” Burr said under his breath.

”What do you mean?”

”The houses all have stereotypes. Hufflepuffs are nice, Ravenclaws are nerds, Gryffindors are the heroes who get all the glory, and Slytherins are evil.”

”Evil? I understand the others, they’re all at least vaguely connected to the house’s attributes, but evil?”

”It’s because You Know Who was a Slytherin.”

”But that’s not fair to judge an entire house based on one person!”

”You’re right. It’s not fair. But it still happens all the time, and not just with Hogwarts houses. There’s nothing we can do to change it, so I would advise you to keep your head down and try not to stir up trouble. That’ll just make everything worse.”

_Hell no._

”Sure.”

”HUFFLEPUFF!”

When the sorting had ended, a very old man got up from the staff table and moved in front of the hall. 

“That’s Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster.” Burr hissed. “He’s about to give a speech, then we can eat.”

“Welcome!” Albus Dumbledore’s voice boomed around the hall. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!” He sat down.

Really? That’s a speech? Was the only thing Alex thought. Apparently that wasn’t the thought process of everyone else, because everyone was clapping.

“So who’s Henry Laurens?” Alex turned on Aaron as soon as the ‘speech’ ended.

”Like I said, he’s a wizard. He’s rich, and he’s got a lot of political power, along with some pretty controversial views.” Aaron said as he began filling his plate.

”Like what?” Alex said as he started getting food too.

“Oh, normal pureblood supremacy, along with racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. He has a lot of followers, and a lot of people who’d like to duel him. At one point there were rumors that he supported You Know Who, but he's denied it.”

”Oh.”

Alex tried to remember anything about John that suggested he’d been raised by someone like that. There was the avoiding any conversation about family, as well as the money, but that was about it.

”Why are you so invested in this kid?”

”He was the one I ran into. He sat with me on the train.”

”Ah, I thought he looked familiar.”

They sat and ate for a minute or so, before Alex remembered something he had been confused about. 

”Why did the hat sort everyone else so quickly?”

”The sorting hat takes different amounts of time to sort everyone.”

”Well yeah, but why was mine so long?”

”You were a hatstall.”

”A what?”

”It means the sorting hat took over five minutes to sort you. You were sitting up there for over ten. Hatstalls are very rare, usually they only happen about once every fifty years.”

”I’m honored.”

”You should be. It’s pretty much unheard of to be there for that long.”

”Does it actually mean anything?”

”It just means the sorting hat had trouble figuring out which house you had more qualities of.”

”Hm.”

Eventually, all of the food on the plates disappeared, leaving them spotless and shining they way they’d been when they walked into the room. Dumbledore gave a speech, in which he went over the basic rules and told them about a corridor they shouldn’t go into unless they wanted to die. Fun!

Two Slytherins, maybe fifteen or sixteen, started trying to group all of the first years Slytherin together to bring them to the common room. They went down to the dungeons and stopped at a door. One of the students gave a password, and the door opened. They trudged through the common room- which was lit by soft green light and seemed to have a lot of snakes in the decoration- and to the rooms they’d be sleeping in. Alex stumbled to the bed that had his trunk at the end, and collapsed into it. He fell asleep almost immediately. It’d been another long day.

**Author's Note:**

> This took longer than it should’ve.


End file.
